Garbage Day Battlefield
by DragonFang2016
Summary: Japanese society has always been meticulous about sorting trash. After the maid is put out of commission, Gakushuu Asano is charged with garbage duty until her return. The week is off to a good start, until one of their garbage bags comes back with a big red sticker saying: This trash cannot be accepted.
1. Chapter 1: The First Offense

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Assassination Classroom. Nor the pictures.

* * *

 **Garbage Day Battlefield**

* * *

Chapter 1: The First Offense

* * *

 _Antebellum  
_

 _022324IMAY16_

 _Monday, May 2_

 _11:24 P.M. (JST)_

* * *

It was usually the Asanos' maid, Tsukijima, who sorted and took out their garbage every day.

But after falling down some stairs, she had broken her leg and pretty much became unable to work for a couple of months. Which left the task of sorting trash to one Gakushuu Asano, because his father refused to hire a replacement maid out of loyalty. Or was it to torture Asano? As if washing his own dishes wasn't tiring enough, the teenager found himself sitting on the cold cement floor of the garage, staring at a stupidly big pile of garbage.

"You would do well to learn some humility while you're at it," the man had told him.

Of course, it was easy for him to say just as much.

Asano skimmed over the multicolored, twenty-one-page pamphlet, his weary mind barely processing the information. Perhaps he wouldn't have been so tired had he not procrastinated.

Sorting was a simple task, really.

Burnable items were collected twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, in government-issued red bags. Non-burnable items were to be placed into blue bags and put out every Tuesday. As for recyclables, they had to be sorted into clear plastic bags. Along with non-burnables, plastic recyclables were collected on Tuesdays, including PET bottles. Glass bottles and cans alternated their pickups on Wednesdays. Fridays were cartons, papers, and boxes, all folded and bundled with standard white string. Small appliances, ceramics, glass, and metal waste were picked up on the first Friday of every month. Unbroken lightbulbs and used batteries were to be taken to the Resource Recovery Location. Large items required a special pickup order and fee.

That's about… nine categories.

Piece of cake.

Asano had already sorted through the burnable trash the day before, and it had been collected that morning, no problem.

He tried to blink the tiredness out of his eyes as he glanced between two bags, his hand clutching the last two pieces of trash. Did pill sheets go into the non-burnables, or the recyclables? On one hand, they were made of plastic. On the other hand… they were made of plastic. He had to make a decision, for the next morning was a Tuesday, on which both non-burnable and plastic recyclable items were collected. With made complete sense, because they were virtually the same thing.

Why, no, he was not going to climb two flights of stairs to retrieve his phone from his room.

And no, he was definitely _not_ going to ask his father for help.

 _Ah, screw it_. Deciding to leave the outcome to chance, Asano tossed the pill sheets into the recycling bag, dedicating a silent curse to the environmentally-friendly sadist who came up with Japan's garbage sorting system. His butt had gone numb from sitting in one spot for so long, and his advanced study workbooks were waiting for him on his desk.

It was time to call it a night.

At least it was Golden Week. There was no school the next day.

* * *

 _Antebellum_

 _030905IMAY16_

 _Tuesday, May 3_

 _9:05 A.M. (JST)_

* * *

 _Bam! Bam! Bam!_

It had been such a peaceful morning, too.

Asano felt his eyebrows draw together in a frown at the thought of the person (wow, who could it be?) knocking on his bedroom door. Jotting down the answer to that final mathematics problem, he wedged his pencil in between the pages of his notebook, pushed his chair back, and made his way across the room. As soon as he opened the door, he was greeted by a clear garbage bag dangling in front of his face, which he recognized as the one he had been slaving over the night before, judging from the suspicious number of plastic _Ooloongoo_ green tea bottles in it. Someone had slapped a conspicuous bright red sticker on top of the bag, near the neatly-tied knot. It was emblazoned with dark characters printed in large block font, saying, almost mockingly:

 _This trash cannot be accepted._

"Why is there a sticker of shame on one of our bags, Asano-kun?" His father's face popped out from behind the bag, a close-lipped smile on his face. His pale eyes were half-lidded and his thick eyebrows lifted high, which signaled that he was displeased. Well, that was nothing new—the man was never satisfied with anything less than perfection—but nonetheless, the expression was rather unnerving.

Asano had to squint to read the messy script in the white box at the bottom of the sticker, where the sanitation worker had written the reason for the rejection. "'The labels were not removed from the bottles,'" he read, then looked up at his father. "And please tell me that you didn't just dub it 'the sticker of shame'?"

"Yes, yes I did," his father said, placing his free hand on his hip and giving Asano one of his notorious haughty looks, as if daring him to challenge his authority as the patriarch of their two-member family (if they could even be called that, what with their dysfunctional relationship and all). "I also remember charging you with organizing the garbage last night. It should have been easy for you to do it properly. If I'd wanted a privileged, incompetent brat for a son, I would have asked for one."

Asano knew that "I had cram school last night" was not a sufficient excuse. It sounded stupid, even when he said it in his mind.

But his father's insult stung his pride.

The final straw was when the man said, "I'd wager that Akabane-kun can sort trash better than you can."

Asano gritted his teeth, seething, as his father deposited the bag in his doorway and left, probably heading down to his office.

 _If it's war you want, then it's war you'll get._

* * *

I know a fic about taking out garbage sounds boring, but... let's just say there's a lot of potential.

This is set in 2016, which is after the in-series graduation, but for plot's sake (and because I didn't realize until after I planned everything out), let's say that Gakuhou's still employed as the chairman of Kunugigaoka Academy and Gakushuu's in his first year of high school.

I based some of the trash schedule from one that I found online. Dunno if people in Japan really have to take out the trash everyday, but… oh well.

*Antebellum means "before war."

*To keep with the war theme, I looked up the military date time group format online, which is really interesting. It goes by DDHHMM(Z)MONYY, which is: day - hour - minute - military time zone code - month - year. So those weird numbers and letters will be indicating a break in the story.

*JST means Japan Standard Time.

I have tons of story ideas, so I'll be publishing a lot of fics, although I'll work on the ones I feel like updating. Expect irregular updates from now on!

Please tell me what you think in the reviews!


	2. Chapter 2: The Siege of Glass

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Assassination Classroom nor the cover image.

* * *

 **Garbage Day Battlefield**

* * *

Chapter 2: The Siege of Glass

* * *

 _Day 2_

 _040835IMAY16_

 _Wednesday, May 4_

 _7:53 A.M. (JST)_

* * *

Since it was still Golden Week, schools and offices were closed. But the garbage pickup was as regular as ever. You'd have thought that Asano tried to prove his father wrong—that he was _not_ incompetent—by sorting the trash perfectly this time.

Nope.

Well, there was no real sorting to be done this time, since only glass bottles were collected on Wednesday.

But still, there were ways to botch even the simplest tasks.

* * *

 _Day 2_

 _040906IMAY16_

 _still Wednesday, May 4_

 _8:06 A.M. (JST)_

* * *

The unofficial trash monitors of the neighborhood association had formed a small, well-organized patrol made up of bored housewives and idle grandmothers, who went around in the mornings on trash days inspecting their neighbors' garbage bags as they put them out on the sidewalk. The NHA called them the Neighborhood Sanitation Patrol, or the NHSP.

His father called them the Garbage Nazis.

Forgot to put your recyclables in the correctly-colored bag? Don't worry, the pearl-adorned old woman who lives down the street will swoop in and hand it back to you before you could get a sticker of shame! Is there some used oil in your burnables that needed draining? Never fear! The soccer mom from around the corner is here and ready to inform you that you. Dun. Goofed! (Or that was how Araki would say it; Asano never did get why these "memes" were so popular.)

If one hears a knock on their door or a doorbell around 8 or 9 a.m., it was most likely one of the NHSP members waiting on their front step with a garbage bag.

That was exactly what Asano was counting on when he heard the familiar chime of the doorbell. Now, normally, the NHSP wouldn't check the Asanos' garbage, since they had a nearly impeccable fifteen-year track record. But the painfully obvious sticker of shame from yesterday should have been visible to them. They would be on the lookout.

He opened the door.

Standing on the tile steps in front of their house was Utau Tanaka. Aside from being the twenty-something trophy wife of a politician in his fifties, and mother of none, Tanaka led the Garbage Nazis on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. She was also the head of the NHA, despite only being a resident for five years. As always, she looked more like she was getting ready to pose for pictures on the runway rather than trudge around the neighborhood on garbage patrol. She was dressed in well-fitted white slacks, wedge sandals, and a low-cut top, her hair curled and makeup flawless. The only indicator of her current activities was present in a silver trash picker that leaned on the wall beside her, the disposable gloves on her hands, and the transparent plastic bag of glass bottles that Asano had taken out that morning.

 _Just as planned._

"Hello there!" she said enthusiastically. "Good morning! Is your father home today?" The subtle scent of her flowery perfume pervaded his nostrils in an almost unpleasant way—there was no way she actually touched any trash, he decided.

Asano's phone buzzed against his thigh to alert him of a text message. Upon pulling out the device, he noted that the text was from his father.

 _Tell her that I'm not home._

"Mm. Yes. He's upstairs." He just so happened to be in a particularly spiteful mood today, and what better way to express his sentiments than to yank the only other resident of the household into the unpleasant situation—AKA their flirtatious neighbor—that had been placed before him? That, and his father's and Tanaka's interactions were pure entertainment to watch.

Was this payback for his father's statement the morning before? Yes.

Was this going to bite him in the ass one day? Most likely.

Will he regret this? Not at all.

Asano raised his voice, making sure that his father could hear him from his office on the second floor, where he was surely preoccupied with some form of documentation or research—although admittedly, since graduation, he'd eased up on his work. "Dad! Ms. Tanaka's here! She wants to talk trash with you!"

"Oh, no, not _talk trash_ , per say…" Tanaka protested. "Well, I guess you can call it that… er…"

 _You forgot my first name, didn't you?_

"Gakushuu," he deadpanned.

"Ah, yes. So how's school?" she asked, switching the topic. She pulled her rubber gloves off and began to primp her dyed brown and blond hair.

"Oh,it's fine," he replied disinterestedly.

"Mm-hm. Bet you're at the top of your class!"

"Yes." Although technically, since Akabane was competing with him for the spot every step of the way, he was tied with him for first place. Which was frustrating. Which was why he had to beat him in the midterms. Into the ground. Until he couldn't get up.

Soft footsteps on hardwood heralded the arrival of his father, who discreetly glared at him in a not-so-fatherly manner as he passed.

Asano responded with a cheeky smirk.

Tanaka was curling a strand of light hair around her index finger, simultaneously showing off her immaculately-manicured fingernails, which were painted an eye-catching shade of red. Asano couldn't help but snicker inwardly. The woman was too obvious. Pretty much everyone with half a mind in the NHA knew that she was trying to land his father (behind her husband's back, of course). He wondered if she knew that he was more or less twice her age—then again, thinking back to who she was married to, he wouldn't be surprised if that was her type of man. The thought of his father being a "sugar daddy" made him want to laugh.

"Good morning, Ms. Tanaka." Gakuhou Asano didn't sound at all like he had been hiding in his office to avoid a confrontation just a minute ago. "What can I do for you today?"

"Mr. Asano, I noticed that yesterday, you received a garbage rejection sticker. That's strange. You're usually very organized, so I hardly check your bags. But today, well… _look_." She gestured to the plastic bag that she had hauled from the sidewalk.

"Hmm. Broken glass, huh?" His father glanced over his shoulder at Asano, the furrow of his brow showcasing a crack in his demeanor. Much like the glass in the bag, although those had a significantly greater number of cracks. So many that they were in pieces.

Asano shrugged. It wasn't like he intentionally tossed the bag onto the sidewalk so that the bottles would break.

Oh, wait.

"I'm guessing that your son has taken up the responsibility of sorting and taking out the trash?" Tanaka giggled in a way that was probably supposed to be endearing, but came out as disdainful. Asano had a feeling that she didn't like teenagers, despite being, what? Only a decade older?

"Unfortunately, that's correct." The russet-haired man placed a hand on his hip, then reached down to pluck the bag off the floor with ease—Asano found that the gentle tinkling of the pieces of broken glass to be a satisfying sound to hear. "Thank you for going through the trouble of bringing this back, Tanaka-san. I really appreciate it."

"O-Oh!" Tanaka exclaimed, blushing. "Wait, I almost forgot! So, on Sunday, I will be hosting a party for the NHA's ten-year-anniversary. I'm going house-to-house in order to personally deliver invitations to the residents. Here is yours." She delicately pulled out a crisp eggshell-white envelope from her bright orange Birkin bag—Asano had no idea why she was carrying around such an expensive accessory on trash patrol. Sometimes, living in a rich neighborhood was so… _confusing_. "It would be _so_ great if you could attend."

His father took the envelope from her with a smile of his own, which seemed to make Tanaka swoon. If Asano didn't know any better, he'd think that his father was just being friendly, but having been raised by his weird parenting methods for twelve years, he had become quite adept at reading him (half the time, anyway). He recognized that current expression as "the face Dad makes when he _really_ doesn't like something." It was the face he made whenever Asano failed, whenever Class E did something that contradicted his precious system. Whenever he discovered that almost all of the ice-cream in the freezer was gone.

And whenever he came face-to-face with Utau Tanaka.

"Well, that's all for now!" She winked. "I'll see you on Sunday! Tootles!"

He shut the door.

"You know," Asano began, "you could always just tell her you're not interested."

"You're doing this on purpose," his father observed, ignoring the suggestion. "Is it because of what I said yesterday morning? If so, then this isn't bothering me in the slightest. Feel free to proceed with your _petty_ little tantrum."

"I'll take you up on that offer," Asano remarked, turning around and heading back to the living room. With his goal for the morning achieved and his thirst for revenge partially satisfied, he was off to study so he could crush that damn Akabane.

* * *

I couldn't resist putting that "Just as planned," since Gakushuu's VA also voiced Light.

Also, I just remembered that I have yet to share with you guys one of my weirdest finds on the Internet. So, Gakuhou's VA, Sho Hayami, was cast in the anime _Is This Order A Rabbit?_ as a supporting character and he sang a duet with someone. Look up "daydream cafe takahiro and aoyama ver" on soundcloud if you want to hear the Chairman sing a Christmas bunny song. I doubt you'll be able to take him seriously again (I think this is why I can never write him as the villain of a story). It's adorable.

Thanks to everyone who read, reviewed, favorited, and followed this story! I didn't think that people would like it! Thanks so much!


	3. Chapter 3: Battle of the Burnables

DISCLAIMER: I do not own Assassination Classroom nor the cover image.

* * *

 **Garbage Day Battlefield**

* * *

Chapter 3: Battle of the Burnables

* * *

 _Day 3_

 _052108IMAY16_

 _Thursday, May 5_

 _9:08 P.M. (JST)_

* * *

 _Crunch. Crunch._

 _Blech._

The new flavor of potato chips that Seo had so enthusiastically recommended to him tasted terrible, Asano decided as he washed away the weird… _feeling_ on his tongue with some Yakult. Whose idea was it to make chips coffee-flavored? The idiot needed to be demoted, or better yet, fired.

 _The manager said his team (A) win the soccer league and they actually did (B) season._

 _A should be "would." B should be "the next."_

 _Scritch._ The narrow tip of his mechanical pencil moved over the correct answer choice in a circular motion. Easy. Onto the next question. He propped his foot up on the coffee table, balancing the workbook on his thigh. It had been years since he'd done homework in the living room instead of at his desk, and honestly, the change was quite refreshing. The living room had far more space, light, and better air circulation, and despite the presence of the enormous flat-screen television on the wall in front of him, Asano hardly felt compelled to embark on a quest in search of the remote, which had been missing for a week now.

"Asano-kun."

He glanced to his left to find his father standing at the doorway that led into the hall, eyebrows drawn together in an expression of solemn beleaguerment. Making sure to be as nonchalant and as casual as possible, Asano held out the bag of disgusting coffee chips.

"Would you like one?"

His father glanced at the bag, then back at him.

"Today was the pickup day for burnable garbage," he said, his tone carefully neutral.

"Yes. And?"

"Come down to the garage with me. Now."

Asano followed his father at a safe distance as they proceeded towards the entrance to the garage. As soon as the door swung open, he was struck by the putrid stink of stagnant garbage and decaying food—a sharp, pungent odor that made him want to retch (but he was better than that, so he didn't). Sure, he purposely didn't drain the fluids out of the bags as was mandated by the sanitation department, but he didn't remember ever opening or tearing them.

"Please stop this foolishness, Asano-kun." His father's voice was nearly a growl, eyes flickering with a poisonous red glow. "You are not a child—refrain from acting like one."

"Of course, Chairman," the teenager replied smoothly, as he strode towards the source of the stink. "However, let's agree that the advice is to go both ways— _uff_!"

After the collision between his foot and something hard rendered his balance nonexistent, Asano landed face-first into the pile of red garbage bags. He lurched backwards, reeling and gagging from the stench, and whipped his head around to stare disbelievingly at his father, who withdrew the offending leg with a smarmy, shit-eating grin and a condescendingly insincere, "My apologies."

 _What the…_ Did he just _trip_ him?

A fucking child, that's what he was.

His mind overflowing with a plethora of words that he'd never say out loud, Asano found his fingers closing around the well-tied knot of one of the red garbage bags next to him. Before a coherent thought could register, his arm whipped forward, muscles straining with all of the strength they could gather. His father, despite the superhuman skills he undoubtedly possessed, looked too shocked to dodge, and with a satisfying, sickening _sploosh_ , the projectile burst on impact. The water balloon of trash covered him head to foot in… well, _trash_ —rotted banana peels, apple cores, fish bones, egg shells, and a lot of liquid gunk that looked as bad as it smelled. He looked like Godzilla had just emptied the contents of its stomach all over him. It was a wonder that the man didn't get knocked over by the weight of three days' worth of kitchen waste.

Quickly recovering from the exhilarating rush that came with chucking a garbage bag at his psychopathic father (ah, sweet, sweet rebellion), Asano realized the severity of what he had just done: He had just chucked a garbage bag at his psychopathic father.

Before the teenager's mind could even form some semblance of an apology, the older man did something unexpected.

He laughed it off and went to go take a shower.

Yeah, no. That wasn't it.

He said something that sounded suspiciously like "You pretentious little _fuck_ " and proceeded to dump the contents of a similarly-smelly bag on his fifteen-year-old son's head. Feeling something slither down both the front and back of his shirt, and suffering from the consequences of having liquid _garbage_ dripping down his face, Asano spluttered unintelligibly, almost choking on the rancid stench, and slipped on what felt like a banana peel, landing on his rear in a most undignified manner.

Recovering enough from his fall to wipe the disgusting slime and some grains of rice off his eyelids, he looked up to see his father's unamused face, features wrinkled in anger and crimson eyes glaring down at him like those of a vengeful garbage spirit's. The most impressive part was that even though he had some unflattering brown fluid on his clothes, noodles on his shoulders, and a fish spine sticking out of the crown of his head like an ornate comb, he _still_ managed to look terrifying.

In hindsight, it was a terrible idea.

* * *

I had been suffering from the worst writer's block with this particular chapter, which is, ironically, the one that I built the story around. As a firm believer of writing for my own satisfaction, I really, really, really, really, really (too many reallys, actually) wanted to write a scene in which Asano and his dad fling garbage at each other, because let's face it: who doesn't want to see that? I didn't know how to get to it, though, without making them too out of character, so I was stuck for a long time.

Well? What did you guys think? Please leave your thoughts and questions in the form of a review! Thanks for your continued support!


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